


While the River Flows

by Wanderbird



Category: Linked Universe - Fandom, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Genre: (sort of), Downfall Timeline bonding!, Gen, Genderfluid Wild (Linked Universe), Poison, and creepy creepy worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:28:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28812687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanderbird/pseuds/Wanderbird
Summary: At least this explained what happened to the Zora.They'd all known for a while now that Hyrule's world came after his, and that in Hyrule's world just about everything was evil. In Legend's, it was mostly just the fish and the Zora who had turned into monsters.In retrospect, maybe he should have guessed it was something in the water.
Relationships: Hyrule & Legend (Linked Universe)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 63





	While the River Flows

**Author's Note:**

> .... so basically I had this whole great big worldbuilding idea for the Downfall Timeline and then I had to write a fic about it. Hope you enjoy! I kinda creeped myself out in the writing of it.  
> I am now very glad that this is Legend's time and not Hyrule's, because with this headcanon, Hyrule's world is *so much worse*. 
> 
> On that note, I'm sticking a more detailed content warning in the end note with a general description of the headcanon! If poison in fiction is sometimes a problem for you, please read the warning before deciding if you want to read the fic. I tried to not get too graphic in this story, but it's still pretty unsettling as a concept, at least for me.

Legend was _so ready_ to be home.

Home! Home to _his_ bed and _his_ forge and _his_ Hyrule—and most immediately, home to the joys of readily-available water. Wild’s desert may have been pretty, and nice enough when you could just teleport around, but _goddesses_ that place was massive and dry.

When the portal deposited him in his own Hyrule just outside the Castle, Legend breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t hesitate, just walked right to the river. The moat was closer, but it was muckier than the river, he would have to boil it. He bent to drink—  
“What are you doing?!” That was _alarm_ in Hyrule’s voice. Why?  
Legend stood, letting water splash against the front of his tunic. “What do you think?” He raised an eyebrow.  
Hyrule stared.  
He edged up close to him, poking the water with a single dubious finger. “…Don’t drink that,” the mage said after a moment.

“’Rule.” Legend frowned. “It’s just water. Straight from the mountain. It’s not _perfectly_ clean, but it’s safe enough, I promise. Worst comes to worse, we stop by Syrup’s for a cure, and in all my life here I’ve only had to do that twice from this river.” The water was already drained from his fingers. Dangit. Still, that didn’t stop Hyrule from running a finger along the slick of liquid on his palm to glower at it.  
“No, it’s not.”  
Hyrule sounded more certain than usual, even as he peered suspiciously down at the river.  
“Not water, or not safe? How do you know?” Legend tried not to sound too aggrieved. Of _course_ there would be some new problem now that the other Links were here, because Hylia forbid that anything ever be _easy._ If ‘Rule was alarmed, though, something had to be wrong.  
Hyrule wiped the last of it off on his tunic before replying. “Neither. It’s… bad. Corrupted. Infected. Not as much as the water in mine, but—Legend, I can _feel_ it. That water’s tainted. It’s subtle, still, but—well, by my time it isn’t subtle at all. This must be the start of it.”  
“Tainted with what?! It seems fine to me, and it’s not like anyone gets sick from it.”

Wild spoke next, slow and quiet. That was an oddity, because she didn’t sound sure of herself at all, despite the swagger of confidence those shining amber earrings usually gave her. “…It’s malice, isn’t it?” The hero had crouched down on the riverbank, coating the brightly-colored patterns of her Gerudo vai gear in mud. “It itches, just a bit, where Ganon’s malice burned me most.”  
Legend sucked in a sharp breath. _Malice?!_  
“I don’t know what it is.” Hyrule shrugged. “Feels like the same stuff I’ve run into before, like fingernails on slate. In my time at least, anyone who drinks of too much tainted water turns into a monster. It must not have reached a high enough concentration here yet.”

Legend heaved a great sigh. “Fine, then. We can pick some up now and boil it when we get back to my house, and figure out what to do then. I have no idea what you’re on about, so I don’t really have any way of telling how long the water’s been poisoned—”  
“Boiling it isn’t enough,” the mage growled.  
“Yeah I can confirm that.” Wild was starting to sound spooked. “Boiling does _not_ get rid of malice.”  
“How _do_ you get rid of it then?”

After a long pause, Hyrule answered. “There’s… a spell. It’s a big one, though. I don’t know it, and don’t know if I’d have the magic power to cast it if I did.”  
“Then I fail to see what you want me to do about this.” Legend scowled. “We need water. Everyone needs water.” He immediately regretted his snappishness when Hyrule shrunk back, looking all skittish and apologetic again.  
“Sorry,” the mage said, fiddling with his hair. “The Zeldas can cast it, but they’ve been using magic a lot longer than I have. Your Zelda might know the spell too?” Anxiety was replaced by thoughtfulness. “Although a temporary solution, at least, would be to drink from a fairy spring. Fairies clean malice from the water continuously, instead of needing to cast a spell every time someone needs it. The magic concentration’ll still make you sick if you drink the water too often, but at least that’s better than turning into a monster. Got any Great Fairies in your world? Or holy springs?”  
 _I’ll take it!_  
“Yeah,” Legend said. “A couple. The fairy at the Waterfall of Wishing isn’t too far from here. I’ll show you guys, I guess.”

 _Is this a new thing?_ He had no way to know. _Has my whole world been drinking poison all our lives? Drinking—_ his mind conjured up an image of Wild’s malice, black and scarlet sludge leaking into the ground, the rivers. His gut churned. _What can we even do about it? Is there anything I can do? If the danger is present in Hyrule’s time as it is in mine… then maybe I can’t._

Eventually, they reached the spring.  
Hyrule dipped two fingers in the water and pronounced it clean _,_ even as the Great Fairy emerged from her pool.

“Hello again, Link. You’ve brought guests with you to my pool!” Big and winged and clothed in green, the Great Fairy of the waterfall clearly took after the Great Fairies of Wild’s Hyrule.  
“Er… yeah.” Legend crossed his arms. “Yeah, these are my friends. Apparently the water elsewhere on the river is poisoned, or… something like that. We came to get some of your water to drink, if you don’t mind?”  
“Your friends.” Her oddly insectile eyes swept over their ragged group, finally settling on the old man in his armor. It was kinda weird that she seemed to find Time so intriguing, but at this point, Legend didn’t really care. “I see. You may all drink from my spring, if you wish. Nine more of you will hardly cause a drought—but most of you will run into trouble if you drink only from here, you realize?”

Hyrule jumped into the conversation. “We know,” he said with a tentative smile. “But it’ll buy us some extra time, at least, to try and find a way to fight the poison. And when the magic gets to be too much, a couple of us have some clean water, enough to last our entire group at least a few days.” At first Legend had thought Hyrule was a little nuts for carrying so much water everywhere he went. Wind at least had a _reason_ to need a bunch of extra water, since the kid lived on an ocean; so the sailor’s one-week stash of clean water actually made sense. But if all the water sources in Hyrule’s time were filled with that awful sludge? Suddenly Legend understood. Even if he still thought refusing to leave town with less than two week’s worth of clean water in his bag was a bit overkill. Still, it had turned out to be helpful enough, so maybe Hyrule had a point!  
“That is clever of you, little hero.” The fairy leaned forward in the pond, propping her elbows up on the rocks in front of her. “Yet I find it curious… Except for Link, none of you are of this world, are you?”

Legend stared dubiously down at the water in his hands while the conversation trundled on, the other heroes explaining things to their host. If anything, this was the part that didn’t quite look safe to drink—he could _swear_ the water almost seemed to glow in the dim lighting of the cave. He took a careful sip.

“Blech!” It was all Legend could do not to spit it out, the stuff tasted so bitter and just plain _awful_ on his tongue. When the others stared at him, he forced himself to swallow. “Sorry. Just… bitter. And tingly. It’s… weird.” Weird was an understatement. It _burned_ on the way down.  
Somehow, they only seemed more concerned by his attempt at reassurance—except for Hyrule.  
“Still better for you than drinking malice,” the mage shrugged. “Taste isn’t everything. The contaminated water in my world tastes a lot like honey, that stuff is so sweet, but it will definitely turn you into a monster.”

“Malice isn’t… sweet?” That was Wild, sounding more confused and hesitant than ever. “Like I’m pretty sure the poison is malice, but malice tastes terrible. Like eating smoke, except slimy and bitter and just generally worse.”  
“Wild, Hyrule, when have you tasted this stuff? I thought you said it was poisonous?” Time asked, worry clear on his face.  
Hyrule made a noncommittal sort of noise. “It’s… better than nothing. If you’re already really thirsty.”  
“Oh, please.” Wild rolled her eyes. “There’s enough malice around in my world, and enough creatures absolutely _coated_ with the stuff, some of it was bound to get where it shouldn’t eventually. The fairy water is definitely kinda bitter, though.” She seemed to drink easily enough, regardless.

Time looked like he was about to say something. But after a moment, he closed his mouth, looking thoughtful.  
Four spoke. “… Okay I don’t know what you’re on, but fairy water is _definitely_ not bitter. A little sweet, a little salty, but _bitter?!”_ The rest of the group nodded their agreement, while Time relaxed and drank another handful of water, though he remained silent. Noticing the lack of disagreement, Four breathed out a little breath of relief. “Glad I’m not the only one who thinks that.”  
“Maybe it’s different for everyone?” Twilight offered. “Because of… magic, I guess?”

“It isn’t.” The fairy regarded them calmly. Her hair dripped in the water like strands of lichen, twinkling as she shifted and twining about the edges of her pool.

“Long ago, my waters acted much as your small companion there described upon everyone: the taste and effects were subtle, and those who drank from it too often hardly noticed until the magic overwhelmed them. But then—well. The gates to the Golden Realm were opened, and an evil power ruled this land for many years. He was eventually imprisoned in the Golden Realm by Princess Zelda and her Seven Sages, and it seemed for decades that Zelda had won—yet an evil still grew."  
She paused.  
Green eyes flickered from one Link to the next, her face more solemn than Legend had ever seen it. Her explanation continued.  
“It went unnoticed by the humans, of course, but powers of nature like myself have always been more attentive to such things. The evil slipped into the water. From where, we do not know, only that as time went on, the fish fled from us, and then the Zora. The Zora kingdoms were once allies to your people, with doctors, artists, musicians of great skill! Now most of them are gone, far gone—some fled to distant waters when it became clear something had changed, but most live here still. They do not come to my spring anymore. They hate, they fear, they attack whatever humans approach them. They cannot speak any longer. Even their hands are silent. When they taste my water, it burns them and they grow very sick, and when humans taste my water, they react much like you did, Link. They cannot stand it any longer, it seems to them so bitter and unpleasant.” She hummed, resting her chin on her arms.  
“Your story of poison clarifies much. If Ganon did something during the time when he still ruled to drip malice into these waters even during his imprisonment—that would explain many things.”

Hyrule let out a slow breath. “So… the taste of your springwater is a way to measure how contaminated we are, among other things. For me, it’s so bitter as to be hard to swallow, but it doesn’t usually burn. For Wild, it’s kinda gross, but not awful. For Legend…”  
“It burns.” He made a face. “Not like. Horribly. I mean, I can drink it, it’s just a _really_ unpleasant experience.” Legend’s heart thumped in his chest. He didn’t want to think about this, about what it meant if he’d really drunk that much malice over the years without ever noticing, or what it meant that the poison had been there all his life. Or how much longer his whole kingdom would be able to go on before this infection felled them as it had the Zora. “It basically just tastes like water for the rest of you?!”

There were nods all around.

The mage finally spoke up again, tapping one finger to his lips. “I guess that makes sense. Wild has accidentally been contaminated a few times, but most of her world is clean of malice. My world is saturated with the stuff, but everyone living there _knows_ that, and we all take pains to try and purify our food and water, even if it doesn’t always work completely. You’ve been drinking it… forever, I guess. Unless I’m overestimating how long ago this all happened.”  
“Ugh.” Legend rubbed at his face as if he could push the thoughts right out of his head. “Great Nayru, don’t remind me! This whole situation is revolting enough as it is!” Reluctantly he forced himself to drink another handful. This one burned less, at least, though it left a tingly feeling behind on his palms. It did sate his thirst, at least. That was something. “Do either of you know where the source might be?”

Hyrule hesitated.  
That didn’t bode well, the answer should have been a clear yes or no. “I don’t think it’s going to be that simple. If you know of a place where, say, the Zoras are friendly, that should be a good place to start. But— well, monsters in my time just kind of exude the stuff. Most plants do the same, and anything else that’s too contaminated. We might have more luck trying to take the malice out first.”  
 _If we can do anything about it at all._ The thought popped up in his head no matter how much Legend tried to avoid it. _If Hyrule’s world comes after mine, like we think it does—_ “I met a Zora once that actually talked to me.” Legend said. “He called himself the king, and sold me my flippers for a fortune. Just upstream from here.”

* * *

They went to talk to the king of Zoras next, but the spring was eerily silent. Wild even climbed up there to check, slipping and sliding on the damp rocks—and dove off immediately when three scaled faces, deformed and sickly, poked out of the water. Their scales were veined with red and dripped black slime into the pool, and their eyes gleamed yellow in the light.

“Corrupt.” Wild announced when she surfaced again. “They look kinda like the dragon Naydra used to look, when it was still covered in malice. Except here the malice is mostly on the inside, I guess, infecting them from within. Damn! If they were just coated in the stuff like some of the monsters in my time, we could have maybe gotten it off!”  
“You didn’t see the king anywhere?” Time pressed. “He would be bigger than all the others, much bigger.”  
She shook her head in a brisk motion, wringing out the now-soaked bandana she’d worn for the climb. “Nope. The pool was mostly empty, and there were only three Zoras. It looks _weird_ like that—you said this was the equivalent of Zora Domain, but I have _never_ seen Zora Domain this deserted. It was eerie.”

As the Links spoke, one of the Zoras peered over the ledge, its teeth bared in a needle-toothed smile. Legend watched in morbid curiosity. Would it attack them? Or was there still enough left in this Zora of what they used to be for it to keep the peace a little longer?  
Apparently not.

The Zora made a strange sort of rasping, gurgling sound like it was trying to speak and flexed its gills, puffing out its cheeks in preparation for a fireball. Legend sighed. He ducked out of the way of the fireball almost absentmindedly, beneath the cliff where the Zora wouldn’t be able to see him. “We should get going,” he said. “I don’t want to kill the survivors if we can avoid it, we might still come up with a cure someday. Who knows? Maybe the king finally fled to cleaner waters.” He took a moment to rub at his face, anxiety gnawing in his gut _._ Legend hoped it was anxiety, anyway, and not the corruption finally taking hold. “Ugh. Hyrule, if you don’t know how to get this stuff out, maybe Syrup has an idea. She’s a witch. She sells health and magic potions, mostly, but she’s brewed some other things for me in the past, and I have no idea _what_ she gets up to when I’m not around. Her cottage is right near here, anyway.”

The walk to Syrup’s cottage was fairly short, though they had to dodge fireballs on the way. It clearly pained some of the other Links who were used to friendly Zoras, facing this nightmarish version of them so far gone they couldn’t even speak.  
Legend was having a hard time feeling sympathetic.  
 _Stupid other worlds. Stupid Ganon, I mean it has to have been him who poisoned everything, right? Why did_ I _have to get stuck with this mess?_ He wished he didn’t have to keep an eye out, that he could slump over and shove his hands in his pockets like a surly teenager instead. _The others don’t have to deal with this, it’s just me and Hyrule._ Legend tried not to be too obvious about his grumbling.

It was easy to dodge around the slimes that always manifested by Syrup’s hut, spawned as they were from the magical waste of the brewing process. The old woman was outside today, too, stirring a cauldron and muttering to herself in a patch of sunlight. Legend stopped a few feet away.

“Got any more mushrooms for me, Link?” she asked after several seconds ticked by, not even looking up. “I can always make you some more of that powder, you know. Or is it the hair color-change potion you’re looking for? It must be something special, if you’re not in the shop.”  
Legend ignored any and all murmurs from the other Links about a hair-change potion and cleared his throat. “Something special, you could say that. Did you know about the poison in the river?”

Syrup spent a long moment peering down at her cauldron before she answered. “The poison? I take it you mean those tendrils of hatred and power that seep into the ground and evaporate with its host into the clouds themselves?” She prodded suspiciously at the contents of her cauldron with the end of a spoon, eyeing it as though it might leap out at her. “Malice. Yes. I know.” Syrup finally glanced up and made eye contact, and sharp intellect glimmered in her eyes. “I can’t fix it, if that’s what you’re thinking. At the moment, I can’t even try—I would need a sample of water that’s _actually_ safe to drink, not infused with malice or magic, and as far as I know, that doesn’t exist anywhere in the kingdom.”  
“You’ve been to Labrynna before. And Holodrum.” Legend raised one eyebrow, skeptical. “I mean I know those were your siblings I met there, not you, but I also know you’ve gone to visit them before. Is the water there just as polluted?”

Syrup cackled delight into the air. “What an excellent memory you have, little crow! But I’m getting rather old and frail nowadays to make such a journey.”  
“Old and frail.” Legend’s voice was deadpan. “Yes, I definitely get that impression from the witch who totters through a river full of fire-breathing Zora every day just to get a particular lichen from beneath the mountain. I’m sure there’s no way you could _possibly_ handle yourself on a relatively safe hike down the road for a few days, even with your assistant’s help.”  
“The fact remains.” Syrup smirked. “I don’t want to leave, my assistant has _work_ to do, and the two of us get by well enough just filtering magic out of the fairy’s springwater. I have plenty of uses for powdered magic, and by that point the water’s just like drinking a very low-power healing potion. Safe enough, though I wouldn’t want to use it as an example of clean water. And one old witch’s potion business is hardly going to run the whole fountain dry.”

Legend sighed and started to speak, but Hyrule interrupted. “We probably don’t have time to make the trip ourselves, but I have water. Clean water, or at least _cleaned_ water. Would that work? How much do you need?”  
At Syrup’s request, they left two full waterskins with the witch, condensation still beading on the outsides of the bags. Hyrule seemed twitchy without it, but Legend didn’t see why, as the mage still had nearly six more of the things that were yet full. At least she paid them well, giving Hyrule a couple of clean waterskins to replace them and enough health and magic potions to match the weight of the water between them. “I make no promises!” Syrup shouted after them as they left. “But I’ll see what I can do!”

Next stop, Hyrule Castle.

* * *

“You mean it’s…” Zelda trailed off. She sat comfortably ensconced in the Throne Room, surrounded by cushions with her cane in easy reach in case she needed to move. The guards were eyeing Link and his friends as suspiciously as ever, but Link seemed to be doing a fine job of ignoring them.  
For the most part, anyway. Captain Haro hadn’t wanted to let Link’s guests into her presence without taking their weapons, which had resulted in a bit of a row until Zelda caught the edges of the argument. If Link thought his friends would do her no harm, she believed him, and at her royal decree, Haro subsided into angry muttering. Zelda almost wished Haro would be so stupid as to try something—at least it would distract her from _this._

“Poison.” Link nodded. His glare was nearly sullen enough to split stone by itself. “Apparently.”  
“It’s corruption,” one of the others explained, one hand rubbing the back of their neck in what looked like anxiety. They wore a rather makeshift-looking, sleeveless green tunic that was pinned together at each shoulder over a long-sleeved brown shirt, and the whole getup was spattered with dirt. Even their chestnut hair, looking overgrown at about shoulder-length, had occasional bits of dry mud tangled in it. “Malice, technically, or at least Wild thinks it is.” They nodded toward one of the other travelers, a somewhat taller Hylian with long hair, elaborate clothing in an unfamiliar style, and a truly ridiculous number of scars. The one in green and brown continued. “Whatever the stuff actually is, if you get enough of it in your system, it—it puts you under Ganon’s control, sort of. It’s a really long story, but I’m from a different version of Hyrule?”

Zelda sighed. “Of _course_ you are.” For all that Link’s forays into Lorule and the Dark World had both ended well, she had rather hoped to be _done_ with alternate Hyrules. “So why did you people all come to me with this?”  
The speaker shifted awkwardly on their feet. “You don’t think the whole alternate world thing is weird at all?”  
“Zelda and I have dealt with alternate Hyrules before, ‘Rule.” Link replied. “I mean, neither of those alternate Hyrules were nearly so friendly as all of yours, and only one of them had someone who could have been the Hero of Courage or whatever, at least as far as I know. But still. It’s not that different a concept.”  
 _Rule. What an odd name. Or nickname, for that matter._ Zelda pursed her lips and did her best to ignore the strangeness. _What would it even be a nickname for?_ She shook her head in the hopes of clearing it before she answered. “It’s fine. But again, why are you coming to me? If as you said, there’s no real way to get rid of it, then why are you still here?”

It was Rule’s turn to take a slow, calming breath. They spoke. “No-one in my Hyrule has found a way to purge the malice from the world entirely, but there are spells that can help. We haven’t all turned into ravening monsters, after all.” A smile flashed across their face. Was that an attempt at a _joke?_ “The most important one is a spell passed down from an earlier Princess Zelda, who taught it to the strongest mages when Ganon came back and everything kinda started to collapse. At least, Impa and Zelda spent a few months digging out and reading through all the accounts of what was going on in the Royal Library once we found it, and that’s what they told me?” Rule shrugged nervously. “And I thought that maybe since it’s always been passed down from Princess to Princess, and among some of the Sheikah mages, that maybe you might know it.”

Zelda blinked.  
It took her a moment to parse the traveler’s whole rambling explanation, but when she had—“Well I can’t think of any spells like that off the top of my head. What does it do?”  
“It purifies water.” That answer, at least, was simple. They sounded a lot more confident about this one, too, which was good. “Water in lots of different forms—in the air, in the earth, or pooled in a well. If you cast it on a contaminated person or animal while the poison is still in their blood, and not stored elsewhere, it cleans that, too. I’m not sure how well it works on plants.”  
“Can you cast it?”  
The traveler hesitated this time. “I don’t… I was never taught the spell. I’ve seen it cast, lots of times, but I know it takes more magic power than I actually have without help.”

Zelda hummed to herself. “That’s not a no,” she observed. “But I’ll see if I can find anything in the archives.” She gathered her cane and jammed it in place against the throne, and with a deep breath, levered herself up. Her hip sent pain shooting up her spine as she moved, and her knees _ached_. It wasn’t as bad as yesterday. Another slow, careful breath gave her time to collect herself. “Come with me. Our collection of magic books is pretty limited still, so if we can’t find it, I’ll need all the details you can give me. You say you’ve seen it cast—maybe we can figure it out ourselves. Link, I would appreciate it if you gave us a hand. As for the rest of you—I take it none of you can cast this spell, or have seen it before?”  
The other seven travelers all gave their answers. None of them knew the spell.

“Well if you think you can help, I would be grateful for your advice.” Zelda said. She tried not to sound too annoyed with this whole situation, but her day had already been far from perfect. Link and company would just have to cope. “The research will certainly go faster with a few extra pairs of eyes. But on the other hand, it’s just going to consist of reading books for a while, and the library will be awfully crowded with ten people in the same section; feel free to wander the castle, or the grounds instead. Supper should be in the Hall in two hours.” She smiled pointedly at Captain Haro, who shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. “I’m sure the guards will be happy to guide you back if you get lost.”  
Without waiting for a response from anyone else, Zelda marched determinedly off.

* * *

There was nothing helpful in the library.

Legend had already figured this would be the case, but at least now they knew for sure. Not a lot about spells, and nothing at all about how to purify water beyond just boiling it. They’d taken a quick break for dinner and were back at it again—at least now the research was more interesting than just skimming through a bunch of books while Hyrule twiddled his thumbs in the corner. Now, they were _experimenting_.

Hyrule didn’t know how to read, apparently. That didn’t stop him from tracing a bunch of symbols out in chalk on the table—in fact, Legend _definitely_ recognized a bunch of the characters from the Book of Mudora. Maybe it was Ancient Hylian? And ‘Rule had managed to just memorize it all? Legend had no idea what the writing here said, though, beyond an occasional word. Something about _sorcery_ and _sky._ Zelda seemed to understand what was going on, though. Good for her.

Gingerly, the librarian laid a goblet of water in the center of the diagram. Marasrahli was Sahasrahla’s granddaughter, and she had a fairly solid understanding of magic and literacy thanks to him, hence why Zelda had picked her to replace the previous librarian after he’d been killed by Aghanim. Still, she seemed suspicious of their intentions bringing a bunch of water into a library. It was kinda funny to watch.  
“And you’re sure it won’t explode this time?” Marasrahli eyed the diagram, dusty white against polished wood. “Or otherwise hurt the books?”

“It shouldn’t.” Hyrule frowned. He held one hand just above the writing, not quite touching the wood beneath it as if he could sense the correctness of the spell through his fingertips. He certainly hadn’t been able to the last two tries. Their first attempt had gone up in a shower of sparks, scorching the table but not _quite_ setting the library on fire. The second had been closer, if still bad: it separated some of the malice from the water, heated half of it into a cloud of steam in the process, and then splattered steam and hot water everywhere when it finished.  
Zelda sighed. “The writing seems sound, at least. Do you have another magic potion so we can test it?”  
Legend said nothing, only dug out a fresh potion from his pouch. It would not be good for Hyrule to run out of potions when they really _needed_ magic, after all, and Legend didn’t have to use magic nearly as often as he did.

“Thanks!” The mage blinked surprise, but took the offered potion with a tentative smile. He sipped at it, made a face, and then chugged the rest in one go. “One more try, Princess?”  
“For now.” Zelda gave Legend a tense but grateful smile, and he softened. “I don’t want either of you to overwork yourselves, you know. It’s getting pretty late.” Her hands shook a little when she brushed the hair out of her face. Maybe it was actually herself she worried about, as much as either of them. Still, it wouldn’t surprise him if Zelda forgot that she needed a rest as well. At least she’d stopped to eat this time. “Are you ready?”  
Hyrule nodded.

Once again, the two of them clasped hands and took a deep, shared breath.  
They spoke as one.  
  


_Purify._

Light burst forth at the edges of the circle.  
That was a good sign, he thought, and then the world flashed pink and gold—

Hyrule collapsed like a puppet with his strings cut.

* * *

The Hero of Hyrule woke somewhere unfamiliar.

This wasn’t his bedroll in the middle of the wilderness, with roots and stones poking into his side. It wasn’t the straw bed in his hut back home, either, or the eerie stone stillness of the palace where he and the Princesses had spent so long researching and experimenting. This was… an infirmary?  
The bed beneath him was soft and comfortable, all white sheets and plush pillows. Light streamed in through tall windows of stained glass that shone unmarred by dirt and disuse, and reflected gently off the pale blue walls. The whole place smelled of herbs.  
Hyrule groaned. His _head…_ he’d overused his magic again, no doubt about it. Even this little bit of motion sent aches down every nerve in his body and pounded at his skull. _What… happened?_

“You’re awake!” Apparently Legend was there, drooped over the back of a chair, waiting for them. There were dark circles under his eyes, but the veteran hero smiled when Hyrule looked up at him anyway. When he spoke again, his words were quiet. “How much do you remember?”  
“It’ll come back to me.” Hyrule tried to shrug, but it was too much effort. “I was trying to figure out the purify spell with your Zelda. It looked like it was working, but it drained too much magic from me too fast and now everything hurts. How long has it been?”  
“Three days.” Pretty standard, then, for a case of magical exhaustion. But then Legend shifted, concern on his face. “Your heart stopped, ‘Rule. For a while there, you were just… gone. Zelda had to heal you, or pump magic into you, or something. I know that’s not normal.”

Hyrule blinked. His friend was right, that was not… “How much energy does that spell _take?!_ Wait, the Princess—is she okay?”

“She’s fine.” Legend stated. “Zelda’s got, I don’t even know, some kind of ridiculous magic reserve thing going on, which I’m pretty sure is just part of being technically Hylia’s avatar or whatever she is. She passed out for an hour or so and woke up with an awful headache, but like I said, she’ll be alright. Spent a day in bed and now she’s back at work. It’s her body that’s always falling apart, not her magical ability.”

Then the most important question finally presented itself. “The spell!” he exclaimed. “Did it… Legend, did it work?”

There was a great sigh from the hero at his bedside as the veteran rolled his eyes. “You almost _died,_ and _that’s_ what you’re worried about?” There was a smug little smile tugging at his lips. “Of course it worked, you insufferable nerd! You know what you’re doing. Wild doesn’t feel any malice in it at all and I think it tastes really gross, so yeah. Clean water, safe to drink. You can test it too if you’re worried. Zelda already wrote down what you did, for posterity.” Legend pulled out a little green book from the table next to him, with gold leaf on the title and delicate scrollwork down the spine. “She’s starting a collection, apparently. She calls it _‘Spells of Sanctuary for a Distant Age’._  
Hyrule couldn’t help it, his lips parted in a grin.  
“And just in case, I wheedled some clean water out of Wind’s little stash and made sure the infirmary staff didn’t use any other water on you while you recovered,” Legend added. “Don’t want our magical healer getting poisoned, after all.”

That made Hyrule’s heart soften. “That was…” _incredibly caring,_ he wanted to add, _really sweet, probably unnecessary—_ “Thank you.” He dragged one hand out from beneath the covers, ignoring the pain that rattled up his arm. Slowly, carefully, he placed his palm in Legend’s.

After a long moment of staring at the book, Hyrule spoke. “Y’know… when Zelda—my time’s Zelda, the one from my first big quest—when she and I and Impa went off to explore the ruins of the old palace in search of how to start fixing our world, we found an old version of the purify spell there.” Hyrule paused. He wasn’t entirely sure what to say anymore, but he couldn’t stand to leave that sentence as it was. “That was how I knew there was a written component at all. It’s all buried in the stones of the well, now, where no-one can see it or break it. But the book we found it in…” his eyes traced the gentle curves of gold along the spine, the letters bright and bold on the front of it, full of all that meaning he had no idea how to decode. “Oh, it was old and faded, bug-eaten, fragile from who-even-knows-how-long on the floor where it fell. But that book also held the same version of the spell that was taught to the Sages, that they still used in my time. Among other things.” Hyrule tore his eyes away at last, gazing up at his best friend with uncertain wonder swelling in his chest. “Legend—I couldn’t tell you the title if I wanted too, but that book looked an awful lot like this one.”

Maybe it was the exhaustion making him feel this way, like his heart just did a flip in his chest. It was definitely the exhaustion that weighed down his limbs with something warm and soft, that advanced on his consciousness like… oh, he didn’t even know anymore. Hyrule sagged back against the mattress.  
He only managed a thin and wavering smile before his eyes closed of their own volition and the world at long last faded from view. His next few words came out as a whisper.

“Did I just give our world a future, Leg?”

The last thing he felt before sleep took him was the press of warm lips on his forehead, and callused fingers combing through his hair.

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning:  
> The idea this story is based around is that Ganon has intentionally leaked Malice into all the water sources in Hyrule, and that malice functions basically like magical corruption poison, or an evil version of mercury poisoning. It has been there for longer than any of the Links have been alive by this point, cannot be easily removed, and will stay until sometime after Hyrule's two games take place- well outside the scope of this story. That said, there are definitely ways to avoid the poison and the story does end in a victory against it. 
> 
> Do with that as you will.  
> Happy reading! :)


End file.
